[原创] 我和复旦大学陆谷孙教授的电邮交往

Epiphany

我和复旦大学陆谷孙教授的电邮交往

Epiphany

In the end, probably most people’s lives will become the dash between two dates, neither of which is long remembered. Fudan English professor Lu Gusun’s life deserves better treatment, one dares to hope.

I have never met him, but we have sent each other scores of e-mail messages. The phrase “distant intimacy” best describes the kind of relationship we maintained for a number of years.

Letters, whether electronic or handwritten, are curious things, as they can both reveal and conceal the letter-writer, who can allow the soul of his fine thought to be embodied in a fine sentence, or who can inflate words and devalue them, overuse words and exhaust them, abuse words and traumatize them. More often than not, Professor Lu’s letters are revealing, occasionally in a startling manner.

For instance, he writes in one letter: “足下大概可以看出我这人的缺点了：我不是学问家，做教授是misfit了，可能更适宜做个记者什么的（当然不是在这儿)。"

Another instance is his candid opinion of Qian Zhongshu's English (钱钟书的英文). Against the roaring propaganda, he points out to me that Qian's English writing can be "affected" (做作) or "turgid" (浮夸), and that Nabokov's English is far better because his writing is "never stilted." Let me quote him:

"no, Mr Qian is not a Nabokov in many ways. for one thing, his penchant for antiquarianisms is deep-rooted in the peculiarly Chinese divide between guwen and baihua. When transplanted in writings in English, such predilection would make him affected or even turgid at times. N's English may smack of exotic laboriousness because after all English isn't his native language but he is never stilted to me."

The third instance is his doubt about English majors (英语专业的学生). He opines: "non-English majors are oft not only smarter than english-majors. they also work harder, feeling more keenly the importance of english. this is what i had discovered long before the cul rev -- an observation reinforced now."

Since my major is science, I am thankful that he did not regard me as more foolish than I might have been had it been English.

In the London-based Granta magazine (issue #77, spring 2002), Lu Gusun was one of twenty-four authors who offered their thoughts on the subject "What We Think of America." One wishes he could have written more in English, not only as an academic, but also as an essayist. The American writer John Cheever remarked, "A page of good prose remains invincible." Did Professor Lu ever write in his life a page of good English prose or, failing this, a good English passage that would break the hearts and build the minds of future generations? It's a sad question to ask, for the answer is entwined with the unfortunate fact that there is no paper or journal in mainland China in which he could have published such English essays as he had done once in Granta. The freedom of expression may be a minor matter, yet if it existed in China, he might have availed himself of it and developed a major English prose style as graceful and memorable as that of Lionel Trilling or Isaiah Berlin.

Nonetheless, so much did he enjoy reading that his passion for books was palpable in many of his letters to me. The pleasure he drew from books was impractical, intense, and final, as they were his true companions that formed the details of sunset before darkness descended. If living means accepting the loss of one joy after another, then for him the joy of reading must have been the last thing the loss of which he accepted.

May he rest in peace!

水笺

Epiphany

关于美国作家Gore Vidal, 陆谷孙教授来信回忆70年代初因为尼克松访华, 他奉命翻译Vidal's play "An Evening with Richard Nixon":

i made my first acquaintance with V in the early 1970s when i was called upon to translate his screenplay "an evening with Nixon". (the bigwigs here were prepared to receive Nixon.) and i've since grown interested in him, especially his little read suspense novels and, above all, of course his essays. you said you do not care for V's political writings much. but i think to study him in any seriousness one has to take his politics, his rooting for homosexuality, etc into account. language-wise, teaching him, sometimes i used the following quote by way of comment:

"A complete, pretzel-shaped sentence by M.F.K. Fisher, Gore Vidal, or Mary McCarthy shows that the writer is still hearing whispers of Latin and has had an old-fashioned 'good education.' Indeed, now that the dictional distinction between the formal and the informal essay has been somewhat eroded, we are as likely to encounter a slightly mannered, baroque, 'dressed up'  language in contemporary personal essayists (See Baldwin, Vidal, McCarthy) as in their formal counterparts."

hopefully the quote is useful.

Epiphany

我写信问陆教授, 他翻译的作品在何处发表。他回信说他的译作一开始就不以发表为目的, 而只是给"top leaders"作参考。那时候脑力劳动的巨大浪费, 令人惊讶。

"no, my translation was not for publication in the first place. only the top leaders wanted to know about how Nixon flipflopped. Vidal was being funny using N's own words which are often at odds with each other as circumstances vary. a political satire."

showcraft

谢谢好文。方便的话可以加下微信，我的就是qq号1438075940。

Epiphany

陆教授来信的引文中提到Gore Vidal(还有Mary McCarthy)写的句子是pretzel-shaped, 我并不赞同。其实Henry James的句子倒是pretzel-shaped。虽然Vidal认为James是美国最好的三位小说家("our three finest novelists")之一(另外两位是Edith Wharton和Vladimir Nabokov), 但他的风格和James的风格相差很大。所以我写信给陆教授, 提出"抗议"。

尊敬的陆教授:

I don't think Gore Vidal's sentences in his essays can be called pretzel-shaped, if this means that his sentences are convoluted, like pretzels, with links and loops. A Proust's sentence, yes, but Vidal's, I have some doubts. Ditto for Mary McCarthy's. Actually, her sentences in her essays are limpid (but not simple-minded), when they are put beside some turbid ones by her friend Hannah Arendt.

My impression is that Gore Vidal aspires, in his essays, after the examples of Edmund Wilson and V. S. Pritchett in their literary journalism, not after the academic critics whose writings he has found to be unintelligent and unintelligible. Normally his sentences in print are straightforward, even if he is gay in his private life. For the sake of parody he may sound Jamesian occasionally, but Henry James is not the model upon whom to fit the dress of his prose.

I remain grateful to Vidal for his splendid resurrection of the long-forgotten American author Dawn Powell, the best comic writer, in his opinion, of the last century in the United States. Here I am referring to his long essay entitled "Dawn Powell: The American Writer," originally published in The New York Review of Books on November 5, 1987. Powell died in 1965, but in the interval of mere 22 years, her name had been so completely erased from literary history that hardly any one suspected that she had ever lived and penned a number of wonderful novels. Vidal's essay on her behalf has restored her to the permanent shelf in the Library of America.

I don't know if Vidal has been in China before for a visit. Perhaps Fudan's Foreign Languages School can invite him over to give a talk or two on campus.

Epiphany

谢谢好文。方便的话可以加下微信，我的就是qq号1438075940。
showcraft 发表于 2016-8-4 17:30

谢谢你的鼓励! 首帖中提到London出版的Granta杂志。这是第77期Granta的封面, "Lu Gusun"清晰可见:

吹笛在湖北

谢谢你的鼓励! 首帖中提到London出版的Granta杂志。这是第77期Granta的封面, "Lu Gusun"清晰可见:


Epiphany 发表于 2016-8-8 16:48

Epiphany

钱钟书胡乱引用莎士比亚

钱钟书在《谈教训》（《写在人生边上》，一九四一年初版，一九八三年修订重印）中引用莎士比亚“Hamlet”里的一句话：

“依照莎士比亚戏里王子汉姆雷德（Hamlet）骂他未婚妻的话，女子化妆打扮，也是爱面子而不要脸（God has given thou one face，but you make yourself another）。”
http://www.literature.org.cn/Article.aspx?id=13609

顺便说一句，Ophelia根本就不是Hamlet的“未婚妻”。把Ophelia说成是Hamlet的未婚妻，说明钱钟书根本就没有看懂莎士比亚的“Hamlet”。

End of quote. 关于钱钟书这个原创性见解(Ophelia是Hamlet的"未婚妻"), 我写信请教陆教授。他来信明确否认:

"文本里无一处提到过。仅从父对女、兄对妹的训诫中仅能看出是恋人。母后在Ophelia自杀后有过一叹，但也并无明说未婚妻。"

我回信感谢他的澄清:

尊敬的陆教授:

Thank you so much for your kind clarification.  Ophelia's father Polonius objects strongly to her association with Hamlet; he does not even want her to "give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet" (Act 1, Scene 3).

It's well-nigh impossible for Ophelia to be formally engaged to Hamlet without her father's approval, for she is such an obedient daughter and she "did repel his letters and denied [h]is access to [her]" (Act 2, Scene 1).

When Gertrude says, "I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet's wife" (Act 5, Scene 1), it's just her wishful thinking and does not indicate that Ophelia was officially Hamlet's fiancée.

他来信赞同我的看法:

your quotes are exactly what i meant in the last email message. and you may want to throw in Laertes's "his will is not his own" and so forth.

Epiphany

陆教授阅读广泛。2013年, 擅长短篇小说的加拿大女作家Alice Munro获得诺贝尔文学奖, 不过加拿大还有一位擅长短篇小说的女作家Mavis Gallant。我问陆教授更喜欢哪一位, 他来信说他更喜欢Gallant:

little as i've read the Grandmother's short stories, i've never liked her as the professional aficionados at a research institute or a publishing house have. detail may be her long suit but it, or rather too much of it, can hardly appeal to a taste more or less macho (an ungallant word perhaps). i remember reading the Mavis stories from different cities and about exile, which dovetail with my inner wanderlust perhaps. Bottomline: i personally like Ms Gallant. is it because she is a reporter-turned writer?

在讨论美国作家Richard Yates的时候, 陆教授说他的亲家(his son-in-law's father)和Yates二战时期是战友:  

i have heard my son-in-law's father mentioning him as both were GIs at the European theatre during World War II, where and when they became friends.